


Case #0130708, Flash Photography

by spacedogprincess



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Original Statement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23478514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacedogprincess/pseuds/spacedogprincess
Summary: A description of the experience of one Lauren Smith during a transit through the Spiders Cave in Yosemite National Park.The following content warnings apply to this piece of fanfiction-Graphic Violence-Darkness-Lost Children-Psychological Trauma-Death Mention, Suicide Mention
Kudos: 2





	Case #0130708, Flash Photography

Statement of Lauren Smith, regarding a strange event that occurred during a school trip to Yosemite National Park in April 2001. Original statement given on August 7, 2013. Audio Recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement Begins.

When I was 12, back when I lived in the US, our school organised a weeklong science field trip to Yosemite National Park. This was my first time going on a trip like this, and for the first three days, it was insanely fun. We hiked up Yosemite Falls, did some of the ground level trails, and even took a couple of valley level night hikes. It was beautiful, especially at night, because I could see stars I had never seen before. All in all, it was shaping up to be an enjoyable school trip. But on Thursday, my entire experience changed, and what happened in those caves will haunt me until the end of time.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever been to Yosemite, but there are these caves called the Spider Caves. Not very well known, but interesting enough that our field guide had planned a dive through them for Thursday morning. Now, despite the name, Spider Caves have no spiders in them. According to our science instructor, because there is no light in the caves at all, neither spiders nor any other animal can survive there.

At first, I was actually excited about the trip through Spider Caves. I’m not too afraid of the dark, and from what we were told we would be in contact with each other the whole time. The plan was fool proof. Each of us would be holding the hands of the person in front of and behind us, until the end of the transit where we would have to break hands to pass through the Rebirthing Canal. The Rebirthing Canal is a narrow corridor barely wide enough for one person and, based on your size and shape, you have to squirm just right to make it through, which is why we would all have to pass without holding hands. On top of this, our field guide told us we would be diving into these caves without any lamps or torches, doing the entire transit in total darkness.

The morning of, we got our packs together and took the park shuttle bus to the Lower Falls trail point like we had on Monday, and then walked over to the cave opening. Now, I can’t say for sure exactly where the opening is, since our field guide led us there, but I do remember it being a small hole in the rocks, barely visible unless you knew what you were looking for.

Once we got there, we all agreed to our marching order, so to speak. I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I ended up taking the rear, so I only had the person in front of me to hold onto, my classmate Sarah. I said earlier the idea of this whole experience didn’t scare me, but as we descended into the caves and the last vestiges of daylight began to fade behind me, I started to grow uneasy about the whole prospect. Even at night, there are small pieces of light around you to guide you: LEDs from a TV or computer monitor, moonlight spilling through the curtains; you know what I mean. But this? This was a whole new kind of darkness I had never experienced, pitch black and utterly devoid of sound as well, since the uneven rock inside the cave muffled all the noise of the outside world. Thankfully, everyone was making conversation, and the voices of the others in front of me filled the silence enough to distract my mind from the darkness. I settled into the groove of guiding myself by Sarah’s hand, using my free hand to feel around the top of the cave so I didn’t bump my head.

About half an hour later, as I was exploring the terrain with my feet, I realised the cave floor sort of split, with a dropoff on the left and the passageway moving forward to the right. Sarah was heading right and pulled me in that direction. But in my confusion of the sudden change in terrain, I got caught off guard and slipped for a moment, letting go of Sarah’s hand to steady myself against the cave wall. I yelped in surprise but managed to right myself, then reached out to grab Sarah’s hand and rejoin the group.

Except Sarah wasn’t there. This did not immediately make me panic, as we were keeping a pretty brisk pace, and it was entirely possible it was just taking a minute to get the group to stop and wait for me. It also occurred to me that in my stumble, I may have gotten turned around and tried reaching for her in the other direction. I called out to her, but there was no response. I tried calling out a couple more times, but all I heard was the echo of my own voice. It slowly dawned on me I couldn’t even hear the echoes of the group chattering ahead of me. I moved forward in the cave a bit, hoping they were just a few meters ahead of me, but no one responded. I had been separated and was lost in the cave.

My first instinct was to stay put. I still held on to the idea it was just taking the chain of fifteen people a moment to move a message to the front, get them to stop, and shimmy back to me, so it made the most sense to remain exactly where I was. Even if my group didn’t come back to me, perhaps another hiker would come from the entrance, and I could ask for their help. But with each passing moment, my belief in rescue began to wane.

With the darkness of the cave beginning to press in on me, I decided to move forward on my own. I still remembered what our teacher said: we had to follow this path until we reached the Rebirthing Canal, and then turn sideways and shimmy our way through and out. I didn’t have a torch on me, and this was before I had a cell phone, so I didn’t have a screen as a light source either. I put the dropoff to my left, and hoping I was going in the right direction, began moving forward. After about what felt like 15 minutes of travel, I felt the walls begin to narrow, and a few moments later I had reached a solid end. For a moment, I was relieved. A dead end meant I just needed to find the Rebirthing Canal, squeeze my way through, and I’d make it out. But to my dismay and rising panic, there was no sign of an exit to be found, even after several minutes of searching.

Perhaps I had gotten turned around. I started hugging the right wall and headed back along my original route, but where the dropoff should have been was a flat passageway. I started to think I had been turned around somewhere and was slowly starting to believe I would never find my way out. Desperate to find a way out, I continued to keep moving for what felt like an eternity, and all the while, I could feel the darkness slowly and silently closing in on me. On top of this, the cave had narrowed forcing me to continue by crawling. I searched desperately for any source of light to guide me out, yet all around me was nothing but that endless, pitch black void.

Just as I was ready to give up, I heard something heavy shuffling along the ground: the first sound I had heard in what felt like days. My first thought was this was my group, or a rescue party come back for me. Even if it wasn’t, it may be another hiker who could show me the way out. Spider Caves weren’t an especially popular tourist attraction at Yosemite, but all I needed was one person to find me.

I called out to the source of the noise hoping they would hear me, and then I heard them begin to shuffle towards me. At first, I breathed a sigh of relief, but my anxiety quickly took over and I realised there was something wrong. Whoever this was did not have a torch, and as they got closer, I could hear them breathing. I slowly realised this was not be the rescue I hoped. I tried to convince myself nothing could survive down here in this black void, just as our field guide had said. But as whatever was down here got closer, the more I believed our field guide had been wrong. I started to regret calling out to it, though I had a strange feeling even if I hadn’t, this thing would still have found me.

‘Are you lost, little one,’ it asked, in a voice that sounded both musical and raspy, and despite every ounce of courage I tried to muster, I could not find the strength to lie. I slowly, silently, nodded my head in affirmation, and despite there being no light around us, I knew this thing in front of me had seen me nod.

The next thing I felt was something playing with my hair. At first, I thought it was a hand, but as whatever it was brushed against the skin on the back of my neck, I realised it was in fact a claw. It continued to stroke down my shoulder and arm using the tip of its sharp fingernail to draw a path to my heart, and I got the distinct feeling it was playing with me.

All of this had already sufficiently traumatised me, but what happened next will stay with me until the end of my life. In my desperate panic to find any way out of the situation I was in, I rummaged around the pockets of my pants looking for anything I could use to defend myself or frighten this creature. In my search I came across my disposable camera, which, while itself useless, I thought I could use the flash to blind this creature and escape. Pulling it out, I randomly snapped a photograph, and for the briefest of moments the flash lit the cave around me. In that fleeting second of illumination, I got my first glimpse of the monster that had found me. I saw its lank flesh, its teeth like a dragon’s, and its eyes. Its pitch black, unseeing eyes. I don’t know how, but I had the distinct feeling they were staring at me, and despite the adrenaline now surging through my system, I managed to keep a level head enough to point my camera, and its flash lens, directly at the creature’s face, hoping the light would distract it enough to let me escape. I took another photo, and as the creature stood stunned for a moment, I tried desperately to run away.

It was no use. The next I knew the creature had grabbed me by the ankle and began pulling me back. I screamed in desperation, hoping someone would come and find me. But no one came. As the creature loomed over me, it began to use its many lank limbs to beat and scratch me, ripping me open. In that moment I felt I would die there, at the mercy of this monstrosity, deep in the earth in the pitch black of darkness where no one would ever find me. Despite knowing no one would come, I continued in desperation to call for help, my once strong voice slowly turning to a whimper. Before long I could barely make a noise, and I could feel myself losing consciousness, either from blood loss or a slowly waning will to live. A few moments later, I was unconscious.

The next thing I remember is waking up outside of the cave, looking up at the night sky, with trees and the valley around me and the soft sound of Yosemite Falls in the distance. The school group wasn’t there, but my teacher Mrs. Bates and a couple park rangers were standing overhead, one of them treating some wounds on my arms and legs. They asked me if I was alright, and I told them I honestly didn’t know. I asked who had found me, and one of the Park Rangers, named Eileen, told me she had gone in with a torch to rescue me.

I asked her how she managed to save me from the creature, but she simply returned my question with a questioning stare. She told me there was no creature and that she had found me passed out alone. Despite my insistence there was something down there, showing my wounds as proof of its existence, she calmly reassured me nothing could survive in Spider Caves’ pitch-black environment, and I must have imagined whatever it was I saw. As much as I trusted my own experience, I will admit her version of events began to sow doubt into my mind.

According to the official report, I had been reported missing in Spiders Cave after the whole group had exited and realised I was missing. I was found 14 hours later, passed out on the ground in a small ditch in the caves, with several cuts, bruises, and a head injury consistent with a fall. The most likely explanation was I had lost my footing when the terrain in the cave suddenly shifted and had passed out from bumping my head on the cave wall. After being found and being given a medical check-up, I was released back into the care of my field trip chaperones.

The rest of the trip passed without incident, and I went home the following day. Despite my convictions, neither the rangers, my teachers, or my parents believed me, and everyone agreed I probably just had a nightmare or hallucination from my head injury. With no hard evidence, I started to believe the official version of events myself. Or at least I did until I got the photos from my disposable cameras developed, which clearly showed the monster I had remembered in my encounter. I knew then my story was real, though I opted not to try and convince anyone else, as I felt no one would believe me in any case.

To this day, I do not know why the creature left me alive, but it did, and some days I wish I had died in that cave. The fear of that creature, and the idea it could be hiding in any darkness, lives with me every day. I cannot rest at night, and even when I sleep, I leave the lights on. Something tells me one day my monster will catch up to me, find me on some dark street corner or in my room during a power cut. When it does, I can only hope it will be quick to kill me.

That’s my only request. A quick death.

Statement Ends.

At first, I believed Miss Smith had given us a false name, as Sasha was unable to find any reports for a missing person by the name of Lauren Smith from Yosemite for April 2001. In addition, no contact information was taken with Miss Smith’s statement, so we were unable to simply contact her for further details.

However, Sasha did pull all thirty-nine reports from the month in question, and for good measure I decided to review all thirty-nine. I did find a report for one Aaron Phillips of the Azalea City Public School System, and despite the discrepancy in name, the rest of the facts of the report are identical to the version of official events provided by Miss Smith in her statement. The report details her loss in the morning and her rescue 14 hours later by a park ranger in Spider Caves. Further research revealed a name change on file in Azalea, California from Aaron Phillips to Lauren Phillips, and according to Miss Phillips’ marriage certificate, in 2011 she wed a British citizen by the name of Henry Smith, and her visa records indicate she moved to London the same year. We were able to contact Mr. Smith, who confirmed his wife did indeed give a statement to The Magnus Institute in 2013 regarding an experience from her childhood that occurred on a school trip to Yosemite, though he also stated she wishes to never speak of it again, thereby ruling out a follow up interview.

Given the apparent consistency of facts, I am confident in concluding that Aaron Phillips and Lauren Smith are the same person, which at least allows me to corroborate some aspects of her story.

The report from Yosemite details Miss Smith sustained several bruises and lacerations all over her body and a head injury, consistent, according to the report, with a sharp impact with the cave wall. There is of course no mention of any monster or beast in the Spider Caves consistent with Miss Smith’s statement or even mention of her remarks regarding its existence to the rangers. I believe the rangers simply dismissed her experience out of hand and therefore did not include it in their official report.

In all honesty, I too was ready to dismiss this statement as a hallucination brought about by a concussion or similar head trauma until I saw the accompanying materials in this case file. It includes the two photographs Miss Smith mentioned having taken in her attempts to escape the creature. Though one of the pictures is heavily distorted, and few details are readily resolved, the other one depicts what appears to be a pitch black, sallow looking claw standing on a cave floor. I will admit it gave me an uneasy feeling looking at these photographs, and despite a lack of corroborating evidence, I knew they were authentic. I attempted to scan the photos into my computer to archive them, but every time I do so, I simply get a corrupted file I cannot open. I have the distinct feeling no matter how much I try, I will not be able to create any digital copy of the images, and therefore have replaced them back into the file with Miss Smith’s original statement.

End recording.


End file.
